STANFORD — Stanford University evacuated two rooms in the main building of its law school Wednesday after the professor leading a heated campaign to recall Judge Aaron Persky received a letter in the mail containing white powder and a death threat.

Law professor Michele Dauber said the note, which appears to have been mailed from Boston to her faculty address, resembled a thank you card or invitation, with a gold foil-lined envelope. Inside were white powder and the following message: “Since you are going to disrobe (Judge Aaron) Persky, I am going to treat you like (sexual assault victim) Emily Doe. Let’s see what kind of sentence I get for being a rich white male.”

Friday afternoon, fire trucks and a hazmat team clustered around the William H. Neukom building at the law school on the Stanford campus. Dauber received the threat late Wednesday morning, she said.

By 5 p.m., Stanford issued a statement saying Santa Clara County hazardous materials experts determined that the white substance was an inert powder that posed no health concern.

According to the statement, the incident left Stanford “deeply concerned,” and the investigation is continuing.

“Threats intended to silence or intimidate members of our community are absolutely unacceptable at Stanford,” Provost Persis Drell said.

Persky also has reported receiving death threats since the recall effort was launched in June 2016. Earlier this month, county supervisors ordered the recall to be placed on the June 5 ballot after Dauber and others collected nearly 95,000 signatures, setting the stage for voters to decide whether to oust a sitting judge in California for only the fourth time in more than a century.

The pro-recall campaign contends that the Superior Court judge gave too lenient a sentence to a Stanford athlete who sexually assaulted an intoxicated, unconscious young woman outside a campus fraternity party three years ago.

Recall opponents note that Persky’s six-month sentence for Brock Turner was lawful and followed a probation department recommendation, noting that Turner must also register as a sex offender for the rest of his life under California law. And they argue that a recall will threaten judicial independence and result in unduly harsh sentences, mostly for people of color.

On Wednesday, Dauber said the recall campaign was not going to be intimidated by this death threat and others she has received.

“We are going to stand with survivors, even when we face these kind of threats,” she said.

She blamed the Retain Persky campaign for inciting the public against her.

“Unfortunately, Judge Persky’s campaign has said a lot of inappropriate things about the recall campaign,” she said. “For instance, they have accused the recall of being vigilantes and being a lynch mob. That kind of inappropriate response.”

The Persky campaign could not immediately be reached for comment. Persky himself is barred under state ethics rules from commenting on the Turner case, which is on appeal.

The emotional temperature of the campaign has risen in recent days as Persky supporters have begun speaking out more often. The Palo Alto Daily Post published a front-page story Wednesday noting that Dauber’s critics say she has never been licensed to practice law. The article quotes the head of the Santa Clara County Bar Association, who said, “An academic understanding (of the law) is different than if you’ve had practice experience.”

Dauber told the Post that most law professors don’t practice law. The paper also noted she graduated magna cum laude from Northwestern Law School in 1998 before clerking for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Parcels containing powder have prompted concern since the 2001 anthrax attacks, which occurred in the weeks after the September terrorist attacks. Letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to several news media offices and two Democratic U.S. Senators (Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy), killing five people and infecting 17 others.

Tracey Kaplan is a reporter for the Bay Area News Group based at The Mercury News. A former courts reporter, she is now reporting primarily on consumer issues, and welcomes any tips/suggestions, especially on how to make ends meet in the Bay Area. Watch for a series this summer on her personal solution to the housing crisis -- spending her nest egg on turning a cargo van into what will eventually be her full-time home. For more info, see @itsavanlife on Instagram and our Facebook group, Full House: Inside the Bay Area housing shortage.

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